P FKN R : How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance

“Aquí mataron gente por sacar la bandera / Por eso es que ahora yo la llevo donde quiera. (Here they killed people for taking out the flag / that's why I bring it anywhere I want now.)”—LA MuDANZA

Global superstar Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, like many other Puerto Ricans, has lived a life marked by public crises – blackouts, hurricanes, political corruption and oppression, among others – that have exposed the ongoing impacts of colonialism in Puerto Rico. Offering a portrait of the past and future of Puerto Rican resistance through one of its loudest and proudest voices, P FKN R draws on interviews with musicians, politicians, and journalists as well as ethnographic research to set Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican resistance in an historical, political, and cultural context. Authors Vanessa Díaz and Petra Rivera-Rideau – creators of the “Bad Bunny Syllabus” – demonstrate Bad Bunny’s place in a long tradition of infusing joy and protest into music and honor the many, evolving forms of daily resistance to oppression and colonialism that are part of Puerto Rican life.